Today`s consumers are well-informed, technology-savvy and short on time. To ensure their business is where customers will open their wallets this festive season, Jane Thomson, MD of Softworx, an EOH company and a distributor of Infor in sub-Saharan Africa, says retailers must deliver a seamless shopping experience. This is only achievable through an agile and efficient supply chain. She says seamless retail should be for life, not just for Christmas and that the backbone of efficient supply chain performance is best practices.
"Flexibility is the key for logistics operations, where being able to adjust all the time is a best practice. At the heart of supply chain performance is fulfilment - choosing, shipping and delivering. Calibrating fulfilment to ever-changing business needs is a prerequisite of great supply chain performance, and that is what all best practices are aimed at achieving."
Best practices, Thomson adds, does not however mean always getting the latest merchandise on the market or doing exactly what the competition did last year. It is about understanding your operations and your costs thoroughly, getting the best return on investment, satisfying your customers and understanding that you are never done with the job.
"It`s critical to understand that best practices are business-specific. The tools to implement best practices - manufacturing, warehouse or transportation systems, conveyors or sorters - are commercially available, but success depends on implementing and optimising them with a thorough understanding of the operation involved. Every operation has its own requirements and constraints that set it apart from the others. Your best practices are the ones that give the best return on investment in the context of your business."
Choosing a technology solution is also not that straight-forward anymore. There are a lot more players in the market - and a lot more promises. Thomson`s advice is to look for a "concept-to-customer" solution. This needs to include certain elements: everything from strategic network design (where you`re deciding where best to locate distribution and fulfilment facilities) to network supply planning (optimising your network supply based on forecasts generated by demand planning) to event management (proactively managing exceptions across global supply chains). Above all, find a solution provider that understands and appreciates that retail never sleeps.
Infor`s supply chain logistics management software focuses on a number of core areas crucial to the retailer. It assists the retailer to satisfy industry and governance compliance mandates; improves "track-and-trace" through process, location and inventory visibility; reduces barcode scanning to achieve operational efficiencies; automates inbound and outbound processing; and increases inventory visibility at the pallet, case, tray and item level.
"The power that change brings should serve as the biggest wake-up call for retailers; a warning to avoid getting so focused on one best practice or one implementation that they take their eyes off their business environment and risk missing opportunities to adapt and stay on top. Companies today must strive for continuous improvement for today and tomorrow," Thomson concludes.
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Softworx
Softworx is a successful South African business applications company that prides itself in being able to deliver world-class products to its extensive customer base, which includes a number of Fortune 500 companies. In addition, Softworx supports clients in industries ranging from manufacturing, retail, distribution and financial, to supporting various government entities. The company is dedicated to marketing, implementing and providing support for its range of complimentary software products to medium and large enterprises that require effective solutions to optimise their business processes.
Softworx has positioned itself as a leading provider of business applications in South Africa, specialising in end-to-end business solutions. The company prides itself on being able to deliver true value to its customers through the implementation of business solutions based on a powerful combination of leading-edge products and consultancy. As a wholly owned subsidiary of EOH, Softworx has increased the number of services and products that can be offered to its customers from within the group.
EOH
EOH is a business and technology solutions provider creating lifelong partnerships by developing business and IT strategies, supplying and implementing solutions and managing enterprise-wide business systems and processes for medium to large clients.
EOH operates in the following three clusters of business units as a fully integrated business:
Technology - Through a number of subsidiary companies, EOH is able to sell, implement and support a range of world-class business applications including ERP, CRM, Business Intelligence, Advanced Planning and Scheduling, e-Commerce and Manufacturing Execution Systems.
Consulting - Concentrated under the EOH Consulting brand are business units offering services ranging from strategic and business process consulting, project services, change management, supply chain optimisation and education.
Outsourcing - EOH offers comprehensive maintenance and support of clients` IT infrastructure and applications through the rendering of full IT outsourcing, application hosting and managed services. In addition, EOH offers full business process outsourcing services.
EOH has a presence in all major centres in South Africa and operates in the rest of Africa.
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